Generally, a CHP plant coupled with district heating is considered more efficient than traditional local heating systems from an economic and environmental point of view.This is certainly true for municipal waste CHP plants but for plants fuelled by natural gas the important developments intervened in these last years regarding both boilers (premixed and modulating burners, condensing boilers, etc.), mechanical vapour compression and absorption heat pumps can change the traditional view. At the same time also district heating plants improved.
The IEA's Committee on District Heating, Cooling and Combined Heat and Power has been concerned that the integrative technology of district heating and cooling is being overlooked by decision makers in both the IBA, the EU Commission and by the United States DOE. There are myths and misconceptions based, in part, on poorly maintained systems in the Central and Eastern European countries that cloud the real fact that, where based on waste heat utilization these systems are more efficient than the direct use of natural gas.
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